Snow shoe

ABSTRACT

A SNOW SHOE IN WHICH THE WEB IS MADE OF A SLIT AND EXPANDED RAW HIDE SHEET INSTEAD OF INTERWOVEN LACING, THEREBY CONSIDERABLY DIMINISHING THE COST OF PRODUCTION AND ALSO RESULTING IN A LIGHT WEIGHT SNOW SHOE.

Jan. 19, 1971 M. GOUPIL 3,555,708

SNOW SHOE Filed Feb. 20, 1969 M/VE/V TOR Marcel GOUP/L HY l -Fl AGENT United States Patent 3,555,708 SNOW SHOE Marcel Goupil, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, assignor to Canadian Lacrosse Mfg. Inc., Sherbrooke, Quebec,

Canada Filed Feb. 20, 1969, Ser. No. 801,122 Int. Cl. A63c 13/00 US. Cl. 36--4.5 9 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A snow shoe in which the web is made of a slit and expanded raw hide sheet instead of interwoven lacing, thereby considerably diminishing the cost of production and also resulting in a light weight snow shoe.

The present invention relates to snow shoes and to a method of manufacturing such a snow shoe.

Presently known snow shoes consist of a frame, generally made of wood, and of a web secured to the frame and extending across the same, said web being made of a plurality of interwoven laces. Snow shoes of conventional construction are generally hand made and consume considerable time for their manufacture. Such conventional snow shoes are also relatively heavy, due to the amount of lacing required for making the web.

The general object of the present invention resides in the provision of a snow shoe which obviates the abovenoted disadvantages and also to a method of manufacturing the improved snow shoe.

A more specific object of the present invention resides in the provision of a snow shoe in which the conventional interwoven lacing for making the web is replaced by a perforated sheet, preferably obtained from raw hide, and which is stretched across the frame, the sheet being similar to expanded metal in its structure.

Another object of the present invention resides in the provision of a snow shoe of the character described, in which the frame is made of wood and has an upwardly inclined U-shaped front end portion, said frame being made of at least two wooden bars, joined and glued together at the junction of the planes of the mutually inclined portions, thereby eliminating the difficult step of bending the wood at right angles to main U bend and also permitting the use of cheaper shorter wood strips for making the frame.

Another object of the present invention resides in the provision of a snow shoe of the character described, in which the frame is made of tubular metal construction to still further decrease the weight of the snow shoe.

Another object of the present invention resides in the provision of a snow shoe of the character described, which resists cold temperature, does not adhere to snow has strength and is light in construction.

The foregoing and other objects of the present invention will becOme more apparent during the following disclosure and by referring to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a top plan view of a first embodiment of the snow shoe, in which the frame is of tubular metal construction;

FIG. 2 is a cross-section taken along line FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a longitudinal section taken along the joint of the tubular frame member, said section being taken along line 3-3 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a top plan view in which the web is only partially shown, of a second embodiment of the invention, in which the frame is of wooden construction;

FIG. 5 is a side elevation of the frame of the second embodiment;

3,555,708 Patented Jan. 19, 1971 FIG. 6 is a cross-section taken along line 6-6 of FIG. 4; and

FIG. 7 is a partial top plan view of part of the web in accordance with the invention, on an enlarged scale.

In the drawings, like reference characters indicate like elements throughout.

The snow shoe in accordance with the first embodiment comprises a tubular frame member 1, of generally elongated shape, with a front end 2 and a back end 3, said frame lying in a flat plane, this frame preferably made of aluminum or aluminum alloy, although it can be made of other light metals or metal alloys.

In the embodiment shown, a single length of tube is bent to the conventional shape of a snow shoe with the ends of the tube interconnected to form a butt joint, by means of a connecting pin 4 (see FIG. 3), inserted into the abutting ends of the tube, the tube ends being crimped at 5 to engage notches in the connecting pin.

The side members of the frame are interconnected intermediate the ends of the frame by means of front and back cross bars 6 and 7, preferably made of wood, and having tapered ends inserted in holes made in the tubular frame, as shown in FIG. 2.

A web, generally indicated at 8, extends across frame 1 and is secured thereto at its periphery.

In accordance with a main feature of the present invention, instead of being made of interwoven lacing, the web 8 consists of a perforated sheet fitting the inside of the frame and attached to said frame by lacing 9 extending through the marginal perforations of the web 8 and around or through the frame 1. The web 8 preferably consists of a sheet of raw hide and is stretched taut across the frame.

Raw hide as obtained on the market, is cut into a strip of about 5" width and appropriate length for a snow shoe of conventional size and shape, and this strip is cut by hand or punched with a machine to produce discrete separate slits longitudinally aligned of the strip and disposed in parallel rows with the slits of alternate rows offset longitudinally of the rows about half the length of a slit, relative to the slits of the remaining rows. The slit raw hide strip is then immersed in water, either before or after the slitting operation, and while still in Wetted and highly flexible condition, it is stretched and attached to the frame 1 by means of lacing 9, the lacing passing through the slits bordering'the strip. Thus, the slitswhen the web is laterally stretched'open up and take the form of substantially diagonal perforations 10, as shown in FIG. 7, disposed in longitudinal rows with the perforations of alternate rows longitudinally offset about half the length of the perforations relative to the perforations of the remaining rows.

Upon drying of the web 8, the latter being then attached to the frame, the material of the web contracts, thereby causing the Web to take 'a taut condition.

It has been found that the slits making the perforations 10 have no tendency to extend further when the webis under lateral stress. Before or after stretching of the web across the frame, the usual shoe foot toe receiving open ing 11 is made in the web in a location such as to be disposed immediately behind and slightly underneath the front cross bar 6, and additional lacing 12 is threaded through the perforations 10 bordering the opening 11 and is made to surround the cross bar 6 to tighten up the web portion '8 surrounding the opening 11 and to secure the web to the cross bar.

If desired, an additional lace 13 is threaded through the perforations 10 across the web 8 at the rear end of opening 11 and is attached at its ends to the sides of frame 1.

From the foregoing, it is seen that the method for making the snow shoe in accordance with the invention comprisesthe-steps of making-in a raw hide sheet, rows of longitudinally aligned discrete slits with the slits of alternate rows longitudinally offset about half the length of a slit, relative to the slits of the remaining rows, wetting the sheet to make it flexible, attaching the periphery of the sheet to the frame whilst stretching the sheet to open up the slits and allowing the sheet to dry to cause its contraction and resulting tautness.

The resulting snow shoe has all the advantages of the conventional snow shoe made of interwoven lacing of raw hide, such as resistance to cold weather, non-adherence of snow thereto, non-slipping on snow or ice and, furthermore, is of lighter construction, because it uses less raw hide and its manufacture takes about half the time as the manufacture of a conventional snow shoe. Great savings in material and manufacturing are therefore obtained. 1

It is noted that the slits in the web can be made with a machine and only very little threading of the lacing to attach the periphery of the web to the frame is done by hand.

The invention is applicable to snow shoes of all conventional external shape, including snow shoes without cross bars 6 and 7.

The second embodiment, shown in FIGS. 4 and 6, has a web made exactly as the web of the first embodiment and the method of stretching the web and attaching the same to the frame is identical. This snow shoe has a wooden frame 14, of generally square cross-section, with front and back bars and 16 respectively, having tapered ends fitting cavities made in inner side faces of the longitudinal members of frame 14.

This embodiment is characterized by the fact that, instead of using a single length of wood to make the frame, as in conventional construction, with the ends of the wooden strip or member secured at the rear end of the snow shoe, at least two strips 17 and '18 are used and are joined together with adhesive or glue along the sides of the frame. More particularly, the rear frame member portion 17 is bent into a U shape and its ends 19 cut at a bevel to join with the bevelled ends of the front frame portion 18, which is also bent into a U.

This system enables to use cheaper wooden strips because of their smaller length. Moreover, this system has the advantage of eliminating the step of bending a strip of wood in two right angular planes when making a snow shoe in which the front end is upwardly inclined with re spect to the plane containing the rear frame portion.

In the conventional construction of such snow shoes, the portion of the frame forward of the front cross bar 13 has to be bent in two planes to define the U-shaped curve and the inclination of the sides of said front portion.

In accordance with the invention, this is eliminated by making the front frame portion 18 in a common plane, as shown in FIG. 5, and joining the bevelled ends of the same with the bevelled ends of the rear frame portion 17 right .at the junction of the planes containing the rear portion and the front portion of the frame. Thus, upward bending of. the frame is entirely eliminated while obtaining a secure glued joint of the two portions.

4 The snow shoe in accordance with one or'the other of the embodiments is completed after its manufacture by covering the frame and hide with at least one layer of varnish or lacquer to completely protect the snow shoe against water and Weather.

It should be noted that web 8 may be made of several sections arranged in end-to-end relation longitudinally of the snow shoe.

What I claim is:

1. A snow shoe comprising a frame and a perforated raw hide sheet secured to and extending across said frame, said sheet being in taut condition and laced to said frame substantially all around the edge of said sheet.

2. A snow shoe as claimed in claim 1, wherein said raw hide sheet has generally diamond-shaped perforations arranged in parallel rows with the perforations of alternate rows offset longitudinally of the rows about half the length of a perforation relative to the perforations of the remaining rows.

3. A snow shoe as claimed in claim 2, wherein the raw hide sheet is laced to said frame bylacing passing through the marginal perforations of said sheet.

4. A snow shoe as claimed in claim 3, further including a rigid bar extending across and secured to said frame intermediate the ends of the latter, said sheet having a foot toe receiving opening adjacent said bar and additional lacing passing through the perforations of said sheet bordering said opening and tieing said sheet to said rigid bar.

5. A snow shoe as claimed in claim 6, wherein said lacing and said additional lacing consist of raw hide laces.

6. A snow shoe as claimed in claim 1, wherein said frame is of tubular construction.

7. A snowshoe as claimed in claim 4, wherein said frame is of tubular lightweight metal construction.

8. A snow shoe as claimed in claim 1, wherein said frame is of elongated shape with a major portion in substantially the same plane and an end portion lying in a plane inclined relative to the plane of said major portion, said two portions including wooden side members joined and glued together at the junction of the planes of said two portions.

9. A snow shoe as claimed in claim 2, wherein said frame is of enlongated shape with a major portion in a flat plane and an end front portion lying in a plane upwardly inclined with respect to the plane of said major portion, each portion made of a wooden bar bent into a U with the ends of each U bevelled and joined and glued together at the junction of the planes of the two portions.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,230,447 6/1917 Tuttle 364.5 2,987,834 6/1961 Howe 364.5 2,615,260 10/1952 Paden 36-45 PATRICK D. LAWSON, Primary Examiner 

